{"id":15503,"date":"2025-05-25T01:23:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T08:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/?p=15503"},"modified":"2025-05-31T09:54:03","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T16:54:03","slug":"am-i-getting-old-and-crotchety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/2025\/05\/25\/am-i-getting-old-and-crotchety\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I getting old and crotchety?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hate Memorial Day.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not actually true. I hate Memorial Day weekend. All the yard sales draw people into the neighborhood. Even that isn\u2019t a big deal, but the sheer numbers of people are a nuisance.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to walk the dog. People aren\u2019t paying attention to the road while they\u2019re driving. They\u2019re looking for signs, and at the goods splayed out in presentations on front lawns, driveways, and inside garages.<\/p>\n

Which means they\u2019re driving poorly in the first place, and thankfully slowly for the most part. Where this becomes an issue is if you\u2019re trying to cross a street with a pup that loves everyone and is equally intrigued by all the nifty colorful stuff being displayed.<\/p>\n

God help you if someone is selling dog toys!<\/p>\n

In short there\u2019s chaos. People parking in the streets, others trying to go about their business and attempting to navigate around various cars and people wandering around like they\u2019re at a mall.<\/p>\n

Walking a dog in all of this is a pain. What\u2019s worse is that there are traffic jams and at every street crossing the wait for a break in traffic is a long one.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s with blazing sun and an impatient pup that you wait, and wait, and wait before it\u2019s safe to cross.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s annoying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Add to that a neighbor across the street screaming and cursing about dogs in the neighborhood doing their jobs; barking at strangers and thinking they\u2019re protecting their owner\u2019s homes or possessions which from their perspective are inexplicably on the front lawn. My stress level starts climbing and I realize I don\u2019t want another summer of this guy adding to the noise.<\/p>\n

Several months ago, the crazy lady was apparently hauled off to the booby hatch. Approximately a month prior to that, all of the 20+ Chihuahuas she was keeping were sent to good homes, or the pound. The limit is 4 dogs per household how the hell she had 20+ dogs is beyond me. Well, not entirely. She refused to have any of them fixed. So reproduction being what it is…<\/p>\n

It does explain why the dogs exhibited pack behavior and why they were so damn loud all the time.<\/p>\n

For a blissful few months, there was no cacophony of noise coming from her place. A new neighbor moved in with 2 huskies who \u201csing” the world into existence about 7:30am. Sometimes Jesse joins in the chorus for one or two howls, then he\u2019s bored and comes in to check on me.<\/p>\n

Lately, he just ignores their morning serenade.<\/p>\n

For the last two weeks a next door neighbor has been host to a lady friend and what I presume to be her daughter. That\u2019s his business and I certainly don\u2019t care. Except that the daughter isn\u2019t all there.<\/p>\n

Oddly she exhibits the same behavior that \u201cCrazy Pants\u201d across the street did. Equally strange is that her voice is almost exactly a match for \u201cCrazy Pants\u201d.<\/p>\n

The voice alone is triggering, but now that voice and nonsensical sounds, singing, yelling, screaming, chittering like a monkey, and all the rest, sounds like she\u2019s in my damn living room.<\/p>\n

Even Jesse has taken to laying in the front bedroom just to be as far away from the source of the sound as possible.<\/p>\n

Why do these people have only one volume? Loud<\/i>! This defective human must be seen, and acknowledged otherwise she raises her voice to impossible levels until she is acknowledged. It\u2019s tiresome, and while you\u2019d think, \u201cjust be nice,\u201d that\u2019s never enough.<\/p>\n

She must be spoken to, and you know what? Sometimes I don\u2019t feel like having an inane conversation first thing in the morning. I sure as hell don\u2019t want to have the same conversation each and every time I set foot on the back deck.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m becoming that old guy that is grumpy all the damn time. I\u2019m fighting it, but it\u2019s a losing battle.<\/p>\n

For the past week I\u2019ve been working on coursework to obtain a certification in a bid to make me more marketable to potential employers. It\u2019s not been that difficult but it does require concentration.<\/p>\n

Especially since midway through the course the bit of software I was learning was so dissimilar from the course materials being presented, that each lab required 20 minutes of hunting and pecking to find the control element the course material said I should see on a particular page. The software in question has changed radically since the course work was developed.<\/p>\n

As you might imagine this added a level of frustration. To make matters worse, the differences multiplied three fold by the time I got to the end of the course.<\/p>\n

The end was in sight, and the certificate was just out of reach.The first three modules, I scored between 93 and 100 on the module exam. By the fourth and final exam, I scored an 88. DAMN!!!!!<\/p>\n

Starting to see the problem? My general frustration level was increasing on a number of fronts at the same time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There are a couple more certifications I want to get including one from an international organization for testing professionals. That\u2019s a $250 course and I think I\u2019m going to need absolute concentration to learn the material and pass that final.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, I didn\u2019t start that one at the same time because the random screams and badly imitated birdcalls apparently coming from my living room would certainly have annoyed me to the point of becoming a real asshole!<\/p>\n

Yesterday evening, I literally couldn\u2019t watch a movie without having the volume at \u201cSonic Boom\u201d levels. Since the movie had gunfire and explosions the situation was untenable, even with the doors and windows closed. So I gave up and spent more time \u201cexploring\u201d the piece of software that has been giving me difficulty, outside the coursework assignments.<\/p>\n

To add another cramp in my style: I like working on the deck in the early morning. It\u2019s quite nice to enjoy the morning cool, with a cup of coffee, my computer, the birds singing in the trees, and my dog watching the world while curled up at my feet. He likes the morning \u201cwatch” and really likes our time together in the morning sun.<\/p>\n

Right up until \u201cHELLO SIR! HELLO SIR!<\/strong> UH HELLO SIR!!!!<\/strong>\u201d The last, at a level that rivals a Saturn rocket taking off.<\/p>\n

I feel like MurderBot. My internal dialogue is something like, \u201cMaybe if I don\u2019t answer she\u2019ll go away. Uhhh nope, she really feels if she talks others are obligated to respond. Can\u2019t she see that I\u2019m working? Why can\u2019t she leave me alone? What would she do if I was mute<\/i>? I need to go check the perimeter. I wonder if she would leave me alone if I was wearing a set of obvious headphones? Maybe a bright shiny set of AirPod Max headphones…<\/i>“<\/p>\n

At least I\u2019m a sir. It\u2019s at this point we exchange pseudo pleasantries and I move inside to continue working undisturbed. Jesse follows me in then lays down with a heavy sigh.<\/p>\n

I guess my annoyance stems from the fact that I don\u2019t like someone forcing me into a position where their sense of importance is predicated on my responding to them whether I give a shit about them or not.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why I loathe the TQIA2S+ abc\u220f part of the LGB community. I don\u2019t care if they exist or not. I shouldn\u2019t be forced to validate them.<\/p>\n

I completed the course. I got the certificate and it is now listed on my resume and the linked in account for what that\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

All of this leads to a question about the viability of remote work here at the house. I can\u2019t be in a conference call with obscenities and fake whippoorwill bird calls punctuated with screaming.<\/p>\n

Remote work will likely involve a lot of conference calls and video chat time. How can I explain it\u2019s nothing, when those sounds will appear to be coming from inside my house?<\/p>\n

Which leads me back to the whole issue of being subjugated in my own space by the vagaries of others who have no self control, common sense, or respect for their fellow humans.<\/p>\n

That leads me back to being grumpy.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, the neighbors lady friend and her defective offspring will be leaving soon. I rather suspect that the next door neighbor is finding this tiresome too.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a voice actor who works from his home. He has a nice studio setup inside the house, but even his soundproofing probably can\u2019t cut out all the noise from his back yard. If he starts missing deadlines due to retakes, he may decide the price is too high.<\/p>\n

Am I a bad person for wanting peace and quiet? Has my neighborhood become like the apartment complex I lived in down in Escondido? I don\u2019t have gunshots ringing out 2 blocks over on weekends when rival gangs went to war with each other\u2026 yet. But certainly things appear to be going south here in my little mountain community.<\/p>\n

If I\u2019m going to have to put up with incessant noise, what\u2019s the point of living here? An apartment in Wyoming, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, or three blocks from my mother and stepfather in Florida would do just as well. A perk is that I could call the landlord when something broke.<\/p>\n

I find myself wondering if I\u2019m crazy, just grumpy, suffering from over sensitivity, or are these things that annoy the shit out of me actually valid.<\/p>\n

\"\"It\u2019s time for bed. I\u2019m exhausted. Once agin, the dog is right.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow, I\u2019ll send out the new resume and wait to see if this improves my responses.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m waiting for the rest of the Memorial Day weekend to come to a close, I\u2019ll clean and toss more stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Remember Memorial Day isn\u2019t about sales, or garage sales. It\u2019s about remembering and appreciating all those who didn\u2019t come home and who believed that fighting for our ability to have a BBQ and shop in peace and freedom was worth their lives.<\/p>\n

I guess compared to their sacrifice, my bitching is insignificant.<\/p>\n

Hug a soldier and have a nice few days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hate Memorial Day. That\u2019s not actually true. I hate Memorial Day weekend. All the yard sales draw people into the neighborhood. Even that isn\u2019t a big deal, but the sheer numbers of people are a nuisance. It\u2019s hard to walk the dog. People aren\u2019t paying attention to the road while they\u2019re driving. They\u2019re looking … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Am I getting old and crotchety?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,87],"tags":[177,181],"class_list":["post-15503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-musings","tag-general","tag-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15532,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15503\/revisions\/15532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bone-in-the-throat.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}